Getting to know Milwaukee

On our second day here we thought we would go out and explore the city a little. We started by driving down to the dental school so we could see where Scott will be spending the majority of the next 4 years. Then we drove down to Rockwell to see where Steve's internship is. After the reasons we are all out here in Wisconsin we decided to drive out to Lake Michigan. We were grateful to have our smart phones for the GPS as we tried to navigate Milwaukee. We were driving to the Lakeshore Park, and in the middle of the Bridge/Freeway the GPS said "You have arrived at your destination."  It wasn't too hard to navigate to the lake once we got in the general area, but we realized that the GPS might not always be right.

"You have arrived at your destination"

The lake was very pretty, and very windy. It was a lot colder than I thought it would be. I hope to go out again sometime this summer, and I am hoping that it will be a little warmer next time.

The city is pretty, isn't it.

We're just cool like that. 

Trying to Stay Busy

I am desperate for a job, and this whole waiting game is driving me nuts! I had one interview and I am waiting to get called for a second interview. Scott and Heidi are both working on finishing an online BYU class, Steve is at his internship and I... I am bored out of my mind. There is only so many times that you can clean the apartment.

Last week my visiting teachers came by. I explained how bored I was and how I have nothing to do. I also mentioned that I wanted to paint a part of my kitchen with blue/white chevron. I won't forget the look they gave me, like, "You were just complaining about not having anything to do, why haven't you painted it yet?" It was the kick in the butt that I needed, why was I sitting around complaining when I had a project I wanted to do and I had time to do it? The next day I had it all taped and ready to go. Here is how it turned out. 

Before:

During:

 After:

Oh so Blessed

I sometimes have a hard time remembering that everything works out. It might not  be the way I hoped but in the end I usually can see why things are the way they are. I have been so blessed my entire life, sure I have had some rough times but it is because of those things that I am who I am today. Isn't that usually how it is? In the beginning it's always, "Why me?" and they you get further down the road and think, "Hmm... I get it."

When Scott told me that he thought we should move out to Wisconsin to go to Marquette I wasn't quite sure how to react. I already had it in my head that we were going to buy a house in Las Vegas, and I would have one of my best friends from high school not too far away. When Scott told me that he felt like we should go to Marquette I didn't see it coming. I was a little caught off guard, and completely intimidated by the unknown. I don't think I would even be able to point to Milwaukee on a map without googling it first. I had only been to wisconsin once, when I was like 13, and it was only for a couple hours. He called to tell me during one of my breaks at work, and the rest of my day was spent looking at maps of Milwaukee and googling the crime rates of the area. As much as I wanted to go down to Las Vegas I trust my husband and if he wanted to move to Wisconsin then I would be okay with it, if not now then eventually. Why move 1,500 miles away from home when we had the option of  moving 400 miles away?

It took some time, but I ended up at the same conclusion as Scott. Marquette felt like a good option and logically it would save us around $100,000. I researched for hours different things about Wisconsin. I wanted to know exactly what we were getting ourselves into. Then things started to fall into place. I wrote about deciding on Marquette on my blog, which was read by a good friend of mine. She then got some information from her cousin who is a medical student in Milwaukee. He gave me their landlord's information. Just weeks after deciding to come out to Marquette we had our housing figured out and things felt good.

We have been here for almost 4 weeks. Time has certainly flown by. Within a few days of being here we knew we were right where we needed to be. First of all, our land lord is absolutely amazing. Honestly one of the nicest people that I have ever met. Secondly, we have awesome neighbors. Our land lord owns 3 apartment buildings in our cul-de-sac, and they are rented by medical students (we're the only dental to move in here). The majority of the renters are also LDS. It's almost like like we are at BYU again, haha. We have get togethers once a week or so and it is so nice to socialize. I'm excited to get to know everyone better. Our ward is almost completely composed of medical and dental students, I think they said there were only 3 or 4 permanent families in the ward.

We are feeling so so blessed to be here. We honestly couldn't have had this work out any better. Things always have a way of working out.

Sometimes I wish that writing was one of my talents

Unfortunately writing is not a talent that I was born with. It just doesn't come naturally for me. I remember in elementary school my mom telling me that my sister, who was in about first grade at the time, was a better writer than me. Truth is, she probably was a better writer than me.

I have a lot of friends who have blogs that are interesting and witty. Many times I find myself laughing out loud at their stories and humor. I only wish that I had half the skill that they have when it comes to writing. I sit down to write a quick update on my blog and end up staring at a couple lines of terrible writing for an hour before giving up most days. Practice can only lead to me getting better and having writing feel more natural, right? Maybe this time around as I try to blog more regularly I can work on being more entertaining and witty while I'm at it.

My freshman year at BYU I made a list of 100 things that I would like to accomplish before I die. Not all of them are realistic, but they are all things that I wanted to do at some point. It included things like get married, have a family of my own, run a marathon, ride in a hot air balloon, etc. One of the things on my list was to write a book. I highly doubt it will ever happen, but maybe if I can figure out this whole writing thing it will be more plausible.

Last year, Scott's cousin, T. J. Robinson, published a book. I couldn't wait to read it. It's always fun knowing the author of a book. It was a great book. I didn't want to put the book down, which was very inconvenient considering it was in the middle of finals week. When I finished it I really wanted to write a book. Steve, my brother-in-law, said the same thing after he finished reading it. It's amazing how much influence a book can have on you.  It takes a great writer to make the reader wish that they could write a book too. He just announced that his next book will come out next February, and I can't wait. If you haven't read his first book I would say it is totally worth the read! His book is called The Academy Defenders and you can buy a hard copy online, or get it on you Nook or Kindle.

A place to call Home

It's so weird to think that we live in Wisconsin. I'm not going to lie, it has taken me a while to add the word "Wisconsin" to my vocabulary. Wyoming comes so much more naturally, maybe because that is where my dad lives and where Scott's parents are from. We live in Milwaukee Wisconsin and I can finally say it without having an awkward hesitation before I remember where we live.

Scott and I have been married for days 685 days, and this is the first time that we have had a place of our own. Most of our first year was spent renting my mom's basement, and the majority of our second year was spent living in Scott's parent's basement. Now we are living in our first apartment together. Steve and Heidi are living with us for the summer, but this place is still OURS. 

The move went great. A week before we moved we got all of our things packed into a large crate and had it shipped to Milwaukee. The worst part about the move was the fact that our stuff didn't get there until a few days after we did because it couldn't be delivered on a weekend. 

We got the car packed with all of our stuff the night before we left with the things that we thought we would need to get through the weekend along with the things we forgot to back in our crate (luckily it all fit). Bright and early the next morning we started our adventure to where we will call home for the next 4 years. We stopped for the night in Lincoln Nebraska after 13 hours in the car. Nebraska had a lot of fields, silos, barns, and not a whole lot of anything else.

This is what we saw on for most of our drive through Nebraska.
 This isn't a picture I took, but this is exactly how Nebraska looked.

It was pretty stormy during the drive, but when we got to the hotel we saw this rainbow. 

Our second day of driving was much better, and much shorter. We were able to finish listening to Eragon on tape and finally see where we were going to live for the next four years. 

I never realized how annoying it would be not to have any chairs or furniture to sit on. We would all just hang out on our air mattresses. Our first couple of days were pretty much one long extended nap. Our air mattress must have had a small hole in it. We would go to bed, and then would wake up in the middle of the night pretty much laying on the floor. Once we bought the large rug it made the floor quite a bit more comfortable.

The weekend we got here we also went shopping for a couch and a mattress. Our mattress was delivered the next day, but unfortunately the couch wasn't able to be delivered for almost an entire week. That is a long time to go without having something to sit on. When we got the couch it was much bigger than we were anticipating. I guess that is our fault for not measuring.

This is where we originally were planning to put it... that plan didn't last too long

We painted the apartment the second day we were here since we didn't have any of our stuff yet. The wall in the living room was red and the wall in the kitchen was orange. I am bummed that I didn't take any pictures before we painted, however I have the pictures that were sent to us from the couple who lived here before us. Here are some pictures, we're still working on the whole decorating thing. Eventually we will have more to hang up. I guess there was a paint spill on the carpet, so right before we moved in new hardwood floors were put in. 

Before:

After:

Our apartment is still a work in progress, and as we get things more put together I will post more pictures. We have only been here for 3 weeks, but it is starting to feel like home.